Mid Without Motherhood

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Absolute pleasure.

We're all beginning to get a bit jack of anti aging, right, anti aging, we're so.

Done with it.

But you're one of the few people i've heard actually say that you look forward to your next birthday, that you're like actively pro aging. Yeah, tell me about that attitude.

Yeah, Look, it's one of those attitudes.

When I say it, I can see the skepticism people's faces and they're like, yeah, you know, but for me, just growing up in a culture where agent is actually revered. You know, I never got anything negative about agent. Obviously can't be Pollyanna.

You know.

We know that certain things will change and certain things will become more challenging, but in terms of aging as something to fear, it was just never in my consciousness, you know. So for me, looking at my mother was my role model. And in her fifties, she absolutely thrived, you know, she really she started to went to study, she broke up with my father, she found a new lover, thank god, you know, and she traveled and just did

You know, agent is something that we look forward to.

You know, you revere the elders and you respect them, and everyone wants to be the older person in the room.

That's so interesting that everybody wants to be the oldest person in the room. So it's like you look forward to getting that wisdom and having that sort of status.

It's a status, that's exactly it. It's a status.

And you grew up in Nigeria till you were about nine, and then you moved to England. Is that right?

I did?

And did you feel a shift then in that culture in terms of how people look to aging or I mean you're little, You're probably not.

I didn't even think about it, to be honest, I didn't think about aging until probably in my late forties.

It's happening to me.

Well actually know, actually didn't. I only thought about it. I didn't think about it even then. I was always aware every master on Berthday that I had, Like when I was twenty, I remember really clearly thinking, Wow, I wonder what thirty would be. And then when I was thirty, I remember thinking I wonder what forty would be Now For me, that was just always my curiosity, you know. I was always looking forward and people think like, why

Do you think if you had to hazard a guess or draw on your experience for why a lot of cultures, including I guess the one we sort of swim in here in Australia, are so anti aging rather than pro What do you think it is. Do you think it's that loss of status because we don't make older people feel special, or do you think it's all physical or what do you think?

Look, I think there's a number of things, and I think number one we are we live in a culture where youth is absolutely valued. You know, it's all about being young, and once you start to lose your youth, you use your value, and especially around women. And one of the things that really pissed me off in this whole journey was how different the message for men and women were. You know, we can tell men are allowed

You know, she's let herself.

Old lady, Yeah, she's let herself go and you know that idea that almost done for women getting old or looking older is almost kind of like a failure in some way, you know, so women are shamed around it, criticized, judge shamed. So it's I think a lot of it is around one that sort of value. But also I think the commercially is quite useful. You know, the whole beauty industry is all about focused on keeping women insecure about their their looks and especially losing their youth.

So a lot of.

Attention on money is put on that, and there's a lot of pressure on women, and I really that really gets my goat because it's not fair because it doesn't happen to men.

Absolutely. So the idea for Silver Sirens, which is your community for women over fifty. As I've heard parts of your story, I've heard that it was sort of borne out of your second act, as it were, in a way. So I'd love you to talk to me a little bit about because I know we've as we've discussed we're very pro aging. But I've heard you say that you did go through a bit of a midlife crisis of thoughts that made you decide to make some changes and

Yeah, Look, I had my own midlife crisis, and I love what Breno Brown says about midlife crisis, you know, sort of seeing that as a crisis.

We'll just see it as a transition, because that's exactly what it is.

But we don't have any word in around it, so most people go through it in silence, and I'm not quite sure what they're going through. And from a therapy perspective, you know, we have extitity, and we have different markers in life, you know, different phases that we go through, so midlife is one of them. And the reason why for a lot of people feels like a crisis. It's like a juncture of a lot of big stresses in life.

Didn't have any children.

Sorry, I was going to say, so when you were younger, you were a model, correct model, and then you had your own fashion business.

Yes, I did, and.

The GFC kind of did came in that, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was a fashion agent, so I did sales and pr for fashion designers in Sydney and yeah, things were just we're just struggling for a while, and I probably should have walked away years ago, you know before, but like a lot of us, I just kept thinking, it's me, I'm doing something wrong. I just keep trying, and in the end I had no choice but to close the doors.

You know?

So I did go through a really tough time and there was and I fell into depression and it took me, you know, a couple of years to kind of climb out of that. But that was my midlife crisis, and I didn't know that that's what I was having at the time, and funny enough, it was coincided with kind of a year after I had a hysterectomy, so I got pushed into menopause, like I had what was called

Without wanting to pry too much, you had a hysterectomy at that age for you had medical issues that needed it was fibros.

Yeah, yeah, I had fibrous for many, many years, very unpainful and very painful.

And the reasons why.

I was kind of hanging on to my usurers was because I was hoping to eventually have children one day. So you know, I probably should have had the hysterectomy, probably say, ten years before, but I was just hanging in there.

It's interesting that you say that, and you say I should have probably closed the business before I should have. I should have hindsights great the building.

That's so true.

But also we do hold on to things. We hold on to dreams and the things that we've worked hard for because you know, we'll and as you just said, we kind of think, well maybe if I just try hard. So you're at that point in your life you're thinking about what's next. I heard you say which I absolutely loved that when you were thinking about what your next career might be, you wanted to choose something that you would get better at rather than something that you'd age

Yeah, tell me about that. Well, I chose psychotherapy. But like I said, I had three criteria of my new career. You know, I'd been in the fashion industry for thirty something years. My last job was in PR, so I was expected to turn up at events and parties.

And I didn't want to anymore.

I just to go home and have a couple of tien and be called up in my jamis, you know. And so I just thought, you know what, my next careers has to be something. One that I get to sit down, because fashion you're always running around, two that the hourly rate would be high because fashion was not, and the third one being I.

Would get better with age.

So in fashion, it was clear that I was aging out of it, you know, and I wanted to do something that I knew every single year, every bit of experience I had would actually add value to the work that I was doing. And that's exactly why I chose that career. And it's proven to be right. And look,

In my rocking chair, you know. And by wisdom.

Exactly had also had therapy? Been you saying that in that your midlife crisis looked like depressions?

Yeah, for sure?

Did you turn to therapy? Was that helpful for you? Is that part of this decision too?

Yeah?

No, that was great.

Look, I'd always kind of been open to therapy, and I've had therapy at different times in my life, you know, So it wasn't something that was strange to me, and for me, it was a no brainer that I would go and get some help, and I would, you know, because I know that there's some clarity that happens. It's not like someone's going to fix me, but there's something that happens when I get to have someone really objective get to hear me.

And reflect back to me what they hear.

And that's where the key is because a lot of people go, well, what what's the benefit of just telling someone your problem? But the therapist is actually trained to help you reflect and it's the reflection that gives you the awareness. Is the awareness that brings a back change.

To understand a lot of people don't get that.

So just having those conversations with the therapist and getting that clarity and awareness myself really helped me to kind of look at because, I mean the time I was considering myself as a big failure, you know, and having the therapy and talking it through, I realized that wasn't actually true. That I'd done lots of amazing things, and there were lots of circumstances why the business didn't work, But for me, being a failure was actually not part of the equation.

You know.

I'd spent fourteen years in that business. You know, I had lots of staff that I had supported for many, many years. I was actually a success, you know, and it just didn't work out the way that I thought it was going to work out.

And that's fine.

That's the problem for most of us when things stopped looking the way we want them to look. Instead of maybe accessing and thinking maybe it's time to change course, we just keep pushing.

You know. That's one of the biggest things I've learned.

That's so interesting. And then practicing as a psycho therapist, you talking to lots of women, is when you and again obviously correct me if I'm wrong. You began to notice this like aging anxiety and a lot of your female clients you were seeing you were noticing this aging anxiety. And this is like the nugget that began to turn into silver sirens as I understand it. What did that look like, that aging anxiety that the women were talking to you about.

Yeah, you know, well I can still see, you know, the one woman that sat across me, she was the first one that came to me around aging anxiety. I met another of her friend in Byron Bay and she said, look, I've got this client that I think you'd love. Because we were just talking in general and I was saying about, you know, we're just talking. I don't know how aging came into the conversation, but it did. And she said, look, I've got a friend who's really struggling around this stuff.

I want to refer to you. And that's kind of how it started, you know.

And the agent anxiety looked like she was a classic midlifer in the sense that she just her marriage was just about to be over. She was going through a lot of angst around you know, what to do next, around her career, and then and then the other layer of it was all around their physical appearance changing. And she said to me, look, I'm so embarrassed to bring

You know.

I think as women too, we can be guilty of reinforcing that the agism with each other than even just the media and society.

And that's the bit that I get really upset.

It's interesting because talking about the surface, as your client said to you, she was embarrassed that she was so upset about it. Yeah, and I think a lot of mid women struggle with that, right, Yeah, is that you're You're like, I know it doesn't matter. I know I'm wise, and You're like, and I know I'm wise, and I know I've lived life and I'm accomplished in whatever I'm doing. But when I look in the mirror what I see I've been told my whole life that this is not apt.

Now.

I know that you, as we said before, you were a model, and I mean, you're an exceptionally beautiful woman. Of course I've got to say that, But how do you get people to unpick that? Because I know that as Silver Sirens, you you're very clear that you don't judge about if you want to have interventions, if you want to do whatever you want to do. If you want to spend too much money on serums, if you want to get your inject that's fine, But how do we do that? On picking that you were just talking

Not for me? I mean, actually that's actually not true. Think I'm glad that you asked me that.

Have I experienced I've experienced it very little because I remember looking at my neck one they going, wow, that's got wrinkles. Now. I was kind of fascinated, you know, I wasn't freaking out. I was kind of fascinating. I thought, wow, this is what it looks like. But I do get it a lot. I do see it a lot in my in therapy, you know. And it starts to pick again. As I said, it's about awareness. How we look is subjective,

It is controls interesting that you said that, because it's true about gray hair and wrinkles and the widening waiste is that you do begin to feel a little out of control, right, And sometimes I wonder if a lot of the interventions that we try and do, we're trying to wrestle the control that.

I think so absolutely you know, we're fighting again something that really don't have any control over, you know. To be clear, there are some aspects of aging that we do have control over, there are, you know, And I think.

That's what's really important. And I love this wort.

I've just got this book thing, you know, there's lovely. So I'm doctor Stephanie Burns. She has a theory around agent I love of you on age and she says that, you know, we all decide at a particular time in our lives that whatever negative things that are happening to us as suddenly are now because of our age. So we may lose our keys, we may we may you know,

You know.

Then, so there's a mental part of it that that we have to really look at.

Faith and I are going to be back in a minute to talk about the moment she knew she wasn't going to become a mother. So Silver Sirens was born from this observation that you were seeing. And I assume that the Silver and the Sirens is about the gray hair. It's also tied up with our identity, right is that suddenly well, like I didn't think that's who I was.

I think it's a bit of both, you know. I mean there's there's a level of acceptance. I mean, the thing is, no matter how much surgery you do, how much denial there is around it, we're all going to get old if we're lucky, you know, And it's a privilege. I lost my sister forty one. She didn't have that privilege. So we're all going to get old. So it's there's a level of acceptance around there's a level of coming

Because we're gonna get old.

But it's kind of like, can I take control of how our age instead of dropping into despair and then giving up and not trying and trying doesn't have to be and going to get botal, but trying to be What are the things I have I have control over because I aways. So my philosophy around agent is like, enhance the opportunities and address the challenges.

So the challenges might be certain physical things.

Do I need to do more exercise or exercise in a different way, or make sure there's enough movement, or do I need to change some of my diet. Those are the things you can control, so you take control of that, and there's something quite empowering. I see the women when they take control of things they can, they suddenly have this new zest of life, and the other things send to shrink, you know that the despair around

And that's powerful, That's.

Really powerful, because that's I noticed it even in myself, is that I feel like I've got loads of energy, loads of ambition, loads of things I want to do. And then sometimes I almost catch myself in the mirror and I'm like, but who is that?

Like? You?

Like as in your you're getting old now. And I wonder also if one of the things that can make when when we visibly start to age, we can no longer quite like we have to accept the fact that, yeah, right, you know, my years are I'm shifting that balance between having more years behind me, and sometimes that can be very hard if there are areas in your life that you've regretted or things you've wished you've done. And I've heard you say, you know, like you can still do anything,

Yeah, look, I think you know, I love to make the distinction between childless and child free because that's what I started off as childless. You know, I remember my twenties traveling around.

Europe, you know.

I I was always an adventure and I loved going out there and doing a lot of things. But always in my mind was I was going to have children. Like it was just I took it for granted. I never thought for a moment that it would not be open to me. So I kind of charged along and did my life. You know. Then I get to my late thirties, a relationship that I thought was going to become a marriage falls apart, and I'm suddenly in this panic, and then I have two or three relationships straight afterward.

I'm kind of grappling.

The men were not right, but I just wanted it to be, you know, right enough for me to get pregnant and have a family, you know. So there was all of that scrambling, and then there was all of my peers were starting to have children, and there was that real loneliness of isolation and where they were all forming mother's group and they were having conversations that I

Know, I don't have to play school fees or college fees, it's mine. What do I want to do?

And then one of the possibility, one of the possibilities there.

And then things shifted.

It was like all the friends all in like in their mum's group, and this lovely life that they had that I envied was suddenly turned around, going, oh my god, you're so lucky. Oh my god, you've just done that. What if you just done oh my god? You know, and suddenly I got this this right sizedness of there's there's positive and challenges in both being a mom and not being a mom, you know, and I was going to do the absolute best that I could.

That I had this life, this privileged life of.

Not having to you know, put my life on hold for someone else, or sacrifice for one else.

And there was other ways of mothering.

Yeah, I've heard you speak about that.

That's so important.

What do you when you say other ways of mothering? What do you What does that mean to you?

Yeah?

Okay, Well, for me, I believe that I'm a natural nurturer, you know, and I think building communities. Yeah, you know, so that's for me. So for me, what are the qualities of mothering?

You know?

For me, it's it's unconditional love, it's care, it's mothers are always sacrificed and always thinking about not someone. I feel that sacrifice a bit negative, but always considering the well being and needs of other people, you know. And I find for me it's something that I love doing. I get to do it in my therapy, you know. And some people believe the therapy is almost one of the roles of the therapist is is playing the role

You model what that would look like.

So you're giving them a some sort of unconditional love and acceptance. And you know, in the relationships they get to see that. So in that way, I get to mother for sure. I get to mother in my friendships a lot, because I'm definitely the person who if someone's said, I'm bringing the castle role, you know, and having a community like civil science, I had absolutely no idea that I was actually building. I thought I was building the

I think there's so much wisdom in like everything he just said. But what the talking about that very painful moment of letting go of this dream and then that coming into an acceptance. If there's anyone listening to this who's wrestled with that and going, I don't feel like I'm there yet, Like I'm still in the sadness of what I didn't get, the life I didn't get to have. Obviously,

Do you think?

Look, I think the thing around time, I know it's not sexy.

Time, you know, and the thing is honor where you're at.

You know, I'm really glad that I didn't have any kind of pretend Pollyanna, you know, spiritual emotional bypassing, where I've just kind of pretended I was okay before I was, you know, it took time, and I'm really glad. So I allowed myself to go there, allowed myself to own the pain, allowed myself to own the jealousy that I had, and I sort of thinking myself as a jealous person, but I felt jealous, you know. So I allowed myself just to own all of that. And I think that's

That's natural, you know. And have a safe space to share it.

Doesn't have to be a therapist, but just have a couple of good friends that you can just go and share it with and not feel judged, you know. And I think that's what's really important. Just give yourself time and just keep being kind to yourself through the process.

When we come back, Faith tells me about whether we're getting better at understanding that happiness looks different for every woman stay with us. Do you think that in general and culture we're getting better at understanding that there are lots of different ways to have a successful, happy life as a woman, and it's not all about the picket fence and the babies. Do you think we're getting better at that?

Think? So? I mean, I think you can see that everywhere.

I mean, the amount of people that are not having children is growing more and more. And we know that's only that's figures only getting bigger, you know. So I think that we're kind of accepting that you can have a fulfilling life without it looking like the cookie cutter that we've been told that they have to look like this for it to be a successful life. That's changing, and I think that's really exciting, you know. And I think that, I mean, I always say, the human beings,

There are I also really love that when we were talking before about your decisions about what to do with this next phase of your life and your decision about your career change, you mentioned money, which I really liked that you did that. And I've seen you talk about that and some of your videos and things about goals because sometimes it seems a bit like frowned upon almost for women to talk about money, like we're supposed we do everything because we love it and we do everything,

I challenged them a lot, you know, because a lot of women will come to me they'll have some problems around money. I mean, I've got so many clients who and separation and divorce were completely shafted, you know, because they didn't know what was really going on in their financial life and their husband took care of it. And I'm shocked the whistle has saying that. But that's still

I poke them, you know.

And I do it a lot with Silver Sirens as well. And I try and be super transparent with Silver Sirens too, because I pay for pretty much.

You know.

Everything's not very white is a community that I'm funding. So it used to feel quite shameful for me to own it, and I just thought, no, it's not realistic. I'm not going to pretend to be where I'm not. I'm going to say what's going on, you know. So I've always tried to model that, and you know, through through our content that we create as well and the resources.

Scary, it's really scary sometimes. I mean it's a stereotype. But women are resilient, right, we push on, we get things done, We make the most of it, like you know, make the most of a situation. But you know, you can only be so resilient when you need to actually be saying I'm not coping.

Yeah, I'm not coping.

That's exactly I've also heard you say. And I want you to obviously tell me more about Silver Sirens, but that one of the things that when you've asked your community, and I assume this is through your work as well, loneliness is a massive thing that came up. I found that quite surprising. We're not surprising, but I think there was a stat I was reading you were saying something like seventy percent of the women you were said that loneliness and connection or lack of connection was one of

You know, as people are aging, you know, it's that thing of they start to recede and disappear. You know, we have those multi generational cultures where everyone is brought in, you know, no matter what your age, every single member of the family is kind of included, whereas now it's almost like you get past a certain age and you're no longer invited to things or people forget about you. You know, and a lot of people too, you know, they move away, or friends are dying, friends are moving away.

A lot of people what it was shame.

You know, my friends have moved away all of this, I've lost all of my contact, but I'm scared to reach out. I'm scared to tell anybody. I feel shamed to tell anybody that I feel like this. So then they'll just withdraw and isolate and try and figure it out by themselves, and their lives just gets shots and the more shrunk and less and more more isolated.

It's very sad to see.

I always remember my mother in law. She's not with us anymore, but she described it very clearly to me of what she didn't want to happen to her, but that she said, I saw my mother's life go from being out in the world with all these connections to literally shrinking to her kitchen, like because she was literally sitting at her kitchen table twenty four to seven, and it was a very stark visual picture for me as.

Of what the shrinking of your life.

Yeah, so obviously your silver sirens in your community. You're very much about connecting, Yeah, bringing the women together. What do you love most about spending time with women in this face of their lives?

Look, I think the laughter, you know, and we talk about, you know, a fewer folks to give, you know, we talk about that, and that gets better as you age. You know, I'm sixty next, and I'm expecting to be dropping more fucks next every.

Birthday, every birthday, you know.

But I think there's a there's an honesty you know that happens. And when we have our monthly lunches, you know, we do a talking stick thing where we go around the room. We do five minute stage and we talk and you really see the women are very open and they're very vulnerable, and they're very real, and there's a richness in what they share, you know, and there's a

We all take off our bras.

You just feel that you know, and everyone just relaxes, and it's that this is who I am. And I always get that feedback. It's like I'm totally accepted for who I am, and for once, I don't have to suck in my guard I don't have to do anything. I can just relax completely.

And I love that when you look so as you said, you're turning sixty six in a few months, which is you know, no age at all, when you with all your experience and from where you began, as you were saying of everyone wanted to be the old, the older person, the elder, the wise. When you look at your what I call like your proper old age, Like what kind of elder do you want to be? What do you see in twenty thirty years?

So I know I often talk about being an elder in training, you know, and it's it's a badge of honor for me, you know. And I think that my sixties, this decade, I really want it to be about intentional aging, you know. And what that looks like for me is I think we can kind of run through our lives and we've got a few goals here and there, but we're not intentional about how the people were becoming. So

Now from fifty to eighty, we're repeating.

The same amount of time, so we're going to have the same amount of possibilities and adventures, you know. So when I think that that, yeah, when I think about that, I think I did so much in my twenties to fifty, like, how can I replicate that? But in you know, reflecting to where I'm going. So I think about very much being intentional ager and age and elder in training. I think about what sort of elder do I want to be, you know? And I want to stay curious, you know,

You know.

We're almost like I don't fit in the world anymore because it's made for the young people whatever. Yes, And it's almost like your self select that you're out of it rather than in.

It exactly, So how do we stay in it? So intentional aging for me is staying very much connected with life. I don't think about it as being relevant. And sometimes I hear the conversation I relevance that just annoys me because I don't think we should be trying to be relevant.

I think if we're just.

Being and living life with curiosity, it's not about being relevant.

What does it really mean?

Because I mean I say that about myself. Sometimes I'm like, oh my god, am I becoming irrelevant? And then but what does that mean?

Yeah, it's just another label that just again it constricts. It's like the same as invisibility, you know. So for me, it's really I think our biggest role as elders is mentoring and being role models for the younger generation. I think if we hide, disappear, shrink, we're not showing young women that there's a lot to live for and they've got this vibrant life ahead of us, and I think it's a responsibility for us to show them the kind

Like when you are talking at the beginning of our conversation today about your mom, is your mom still with us? She is, yeah, And how is she doing now?

She's ata Well, she's not the sort of elder that she would have liked to be because she had some health issues which really slowed her down. You know, so in terms of physical you know, mobility, it's quite as more restrictive than she would be. She's always been quite an active person, but she got ill about five years ago, and that kind of really derailed her health. But in terms of mental health, she's as sharp as a whistle.

Yeah, oh well, I'm very happy to hear that.

Faith.

It's been amazing to talk to you today.

I feel fool I love.

Yeah, I loved it. I love there are so many things I'm gonna have to slow down and think about that. Look, if you loved this episode, and I obviously love talking to Faith, I think I particularly found a lot of revelation in that honest conversation about what happens when you don't get what you want, which has happened to all of us in very different ways, and how you deal with it, and her honesty around the midlife crisis and